The present invention relates to a method and a system for aiding diagnosis of an object showing at least one disorder and for selecting findings that characterise at least part of the state of the object wherein use is made of a number of findings stored in at least one data base.
The invention in particular relates e.g. a method for aiding medical doctors in diagnosing diseases. The doctor will not be relieved from deciding on a diagnosis but after entering symptoms a selection of diagnoses is displayed that best compare to the symptoms of the patient and their assessment by the attending physician.
The invention likewise relates to a method and a system in which an expert is aided in analysing a complex object showing at least one disorder.
Various methods and systems for aiding in selecting findings have become known in the prior art. A doctor may for example enter all the symptoms of a patient into a data base and he will receive a list of diseases having precisely these symptoms.
It is likewise possible for example when diagnosing disorders in complex technical systems, to enter all the irregular measurement values and operating conditions whereupon a selection of the possible sources is provided.
All of these methods and systems work reliably per se. There is, however, the drawback for example when diagnosing diseases that a patient may suffer from an atypical form of a disease not showing what is actually a typical characteristic (symptom) and which had not been described previously. This may result in a faulty diagnosis because the doctor will possibly not consider this specific disease. With the known methods this disease will not be indicated due to the absence of what is actually a typical symptom. Another problem in diagnosis may arise if the patient suffers from two diseases whose symptoms overlap. Then a data base query including all the symptoms will not yield a result. Another problem of existing methods consists in that the “gut feeling” of a doctor is not taken into account for the significance of a symptom in view of the course of the disease. Thus e.g. vomiting in the context of vertigo is less significant (since it tends to be an accompanying symptom) than in the context of bloody stools.
Also when diagnosing for example a defective motor vehicle, not all the marks of the current malfunction will be essential. The expert in charge of repairs will know due to his experience that a dent in the fender is not significant for a worn out seat cover. When the running engine knocks the source may be a defect in engine control. Or else the source might be nonconforming fuel in the tank.
In the case of complex technical products there may be multiple defects unrelated to one another which impedes diagnosis.